The overfishing was established by the Commission in close co-operation with the Polish control authorities. During the last five years Poland significantly improved its fisheries control system, increased its general control capacity and started to remedy remaining gaps in its fisheries legislation.
 
The overfishing is linked to a problem of misreporting salmon catches as sea trout – a closely related species for which there is no EU annual quota in the Baltic Sea. The different EU countries concerned, including Poland, agreed in recent years to increase salmon fisheries control.